NCEM Young Composers Award 2015 with the Dunedin Consort

The two winning works of the 2015 NCEM Young Composers Award, Joshua Urben's Fractos Corde and John Goldie-Scot's Why are you in such a hurry?, were premiered in Glasgow by the Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt. The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show. Listen here

The 2015 NCEM Young Composers Award was presented in association with BBC Radio 3 and the internationally-acclaimed Dunedin Consort. The winners were: Joshua Urben (aged 16) in the 18 years and under category, and John Goldie-Scot (aged 25) in the 19 to 25 years category.

The NCEM Young Composers Award was supported by 29th May 1961 Charity and Mayfield Valley Arts Trust.

Winner in the 19 to 25 category:
John Goldie-Scot - Why are you in such a hurry?

Winner in the 18 years and under category:
Joshua Urben - Fractos Corde

The other finalists were, in the 19 to 25 age category:
Nathan Dearden compassion. love.

Callum Hackett Orfeo, Act IV

Robin Haigh Pluto and Proserpine

Juta Pranulyte Orpheus

and in the 18-and-under category:
Gabrielle Woodward Shepherd No More Singing

The judges also commended Freddy Wickham's entry, The Persuasion of Hades

The award was judged at the National Centre for Early Music in York in May. During the day the young composers had the opportunity to receive feedback on their shortlisted entries in a workshop led by composer Christopher Fox, composer and Professor in Music at Brunel University, and presented by the Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt keyboards with Mhairi Lawson soprano; Nicholas Mulroy tenor; Jon Stainsby bass; Pamela Thorby, Frances Norbury recorders; Huw Daniel, Colin Scobie violins and Alison McGillivray viola da gamba. The pieces were performed that evening at a public concert in the presence of a panel of judges - Delma Tomlin, Director of the National Centre for Early Music; Les Pratt, BBC Radio 3 Producer; and John Butt, Director of the Dunedin Consort.

The 2015 NCEM Young Composers Award invited composers to create new settings for a short dramatic scene from one of two Monteverdi masterpieces: Orfeo or Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Students were provided with an English translation of the texts, which could be cut or adapted as appropriate. The new works had to be written for two or three singers accompanied by a small ensemble of baroque instruments, similar to those available to Monteverdi.

If you would like to receive information about the award, please email education@ncem.co.uk asking to be added to the NCEM Young Composers Award database.